Last Christmas
by Layla Reyne
Summary: Damon's last Christmas does not go according to plan. One-shot for LJ A2A Delena Holiday Exchange (Prompt: Christmas Morning, Elena is a vampire and Damon is a human.)


**Last Christmas**

**By: Layla Reyne**

**Summary: **Damon's last Christmas does not go according to plan. One-shot for LJ A2A Delena Holiday Exchange.

**A/N: **In answer to the LJ A2A Delena Holiday Exchange Prompt from Sar (aka junkyatbest aka badboysarebest):

_Christmas Morning, Elena is a vampire and Damon is a human. This can be done in two ways, Damon turned into a human or Damon was always a human (AU role reversal of the show). Major bonus points if it's not that fluffy. I'd love it more if it's not a good thing that Damon is human._

Yeah, so I may have posted my fluffy one-shot, Sleight of Hand, first to lull you into a false sense of security. You didn't really think Damon would escape my holiday pen unscathed, now did you?! It's tradition! * _Evil cackle_ * Also, this is written in second person Damon POV. You've been warned, on both counts.

Another round of thanks and applause (and a lifetime supply of Kleenex) to Sandra (dutchtreat), Chelley (chellethebelle) and Jenn Jr. (jennifersimas) for their beta and pre-reading assistance.

**Disclaimer: The characters and other things from The Vampire Diaries are not mine. All due credit to the rightful holders.**

* * *

Thirty-four. Five more than last year.

It's become your Christmas tradition – counting the gray hairs that have appeared among the thinning black ones on your head. You've been counting every Christmas morning since your heart started beating faster. That day thirty years ago when you thought you were sacrificing your own immortal life to save your wife's and brother's.

But the witches fucked you over once again. Saving Elena and Stefan's immortal lives "won" you _your_ mortality.

_Some fucking prize. _

To age normally when practically all of your family does not. To be perceived by strangers as the older man with a "trophy wife" young enough to be your daughter. To become a liability that she must protect. To find yourself dying of a disease that will claim your life within the next year, if you were fool enough to wait for the Reaper.

But Elena doesn't know that. Stefan doesn't either. The only person in Mystic Falls who is privy to your imminent demise is Meredith Fell.

Bending over the sink of your bathroom, preserved in a wing of the Boarding House that the expanded Bennett-Gilbert clan keeps covered in white sheets, except for when the "original occupants" visit during the holidays, you wet a washcloth and clean off the dried blood on your neck, remembering the previous day and night.

* * *

You and Elena blew into town around noon, chatting briefly with Bonnie and Jeremy, before heading upstairs to unpack and reacquaint yourselves with a bed that is still second to none. When Stefan and Caroline arrived a couple of hours later, there were hugs, kisses, and painfully shrill shrieks of joy. Ridiculous, since the girls Skype at least once a week and you and Elena meet up with your brother and his wife several times a year at one of the Salvatore properties that are now scattered across the globe.

Greetings out of the way, Elena and Caroline spent the afternoon in the kitchen, cooking and sipping wine with Bonnie (and later in the afternoon, Liz), while you, Stefan and Jeremy hid out in the garage with a bottle of bourbon and Little Gilbert's latest restoration project – a 1968 Ford Mustang GT.

Green, _of course_.

You're more than a little proud that Jeremy picked up that hobby while living with you all those years ago. Not to mention that it was an unspoken condition to your deeding the house to him and Bonnie when you and Elena and Stefan and Caroline had to leave town. Curious glances had finally caught up with the non-aging three.

You were already human by then. Irreversibly, courtesy of the witches. Elena had tearfully offered to let you go so that you could live a normal life – find another woman who could give you children and a real family – but you knew, after two hundred years, that there was no other woman for you. Elena was it – human or vampire, dead or alive – period, full stop, no question whatsoever.

Six months later she was your wife, and in the years that followed, a family of sorts had grown up around you.

By the time dinner was ready, three generations of Bennett witches had arrived. Bennett women, it seemed, were pre-disposed to breed more witches, not a single warlock in the bunch. Bonnie and Jeremy's granddaughters were running from room to room through your former home, their mothers chasing after them. While you couldn't help but cringe at the mess they created, you were nevertheless happy that the Boarding House had grown out of its dark and scary past full of torture, murder and blood, into a real home filled with laughter, joy and love.

Watching your wife embrace her nieces and their daughters, each of whom was raised with the knowledge that their family wasn't exactly normal (or purely human, for that matter), was as close to the ideal family you could have asked for, given the twists and turns your life has taken. Elena loves those girls like they are her own. So do you, in your way, setting up trust funds for each of them and maintaining eyes and ears in Mystic Falls, keeping your promise made centuries ago. A promise you hope will be enough to convince Elena to stay behind, after you are gone, to continue to watch over the Bennett witches you've spent lifetimes protecting.

Too much food and too many glasses of wine and bourbon later, hugs, kisses and goodbyes were exchanged, Caroline and Stefan snuck off to his attic room, and you and Elena retired to yours.

You barely got the door closed and kicked off your shoes before Elena pounced, drunk on love, happiness and booze. She kissed you hard, hot and deep, her descending fangs scraping against your tongue, while her fingers laid waste to your jeans and t-shirt. Your fingers weren't as strong, but they were practiced, so her denim skirt was quickly unzipped and hit the floor. Breaking the kiss, you tugged her red sweater over her head and stepped back to admire your Christmas gift – a tradition of hers. This year's present was a royal blue demi-cup silk bra with black lace trim that pushed her breasts up high and just barely covered her taut nipples, paired with matching silk and lace panties.

Closing the distance, your hands drifted down her sides, around her waist and over her rear, pulling her roughly against your body, not ashamed to let her know how much you appreciated this tradition of hers. Thinking to yourself how much you were going to miss it. Sliding a hand down her leg and hitching her thigh around your hip, you groaned when your erection came into contact with her hot, wet center, exposed by the surprising opening at the crotch of her panties.

"What do we have here?" you smirked, teasingly rubbing against her heated flesh.

"A Christmas treat," she smiled coyly, before her lips moved down the column of your neck and her fangs pierced her particular vein of choice.

She dashed the two of you to the bed, effortlessly pinning you on your back and sinking down onto your length while taking a long pull of blood. Your cock, buried inside her to the hilt, throbbed harder with each gulp, each roll of her hips. You felt her lips smiling against your skin. She knew the exquisite torture she was inflicting and loved every minute of it.

So did you, savoring it for what only you knew it was. Your last night together.

You slid one hand up her side, palming a breast and tugging aside the fabric of her bra, taking her nipple between your fingers and rolling it hard, just the way she liked. Your other hand skirted between your bodies, executing a similar maneuver over her clit. She released your neck, throwing back her head, hair flying, with a gasping breath.

"Harder, Damon."

You bucked your hips up roughly, setting a rapid pace, as your mouth caught her exposed nipple, sucking it between your lips and teeth, before soothingly swirling your tongue over it. Feeling her center constrict around your cock, you rolled the two of you over, pounding into her as her orgasm neared, all the while fighting back your own, waiting for her. You fell to your forearms, your mouth going to her neck, teeth scraping at skin, nipping where you used to bite.

Old habits died hard.

You still wanted all of her, just as she earlier had all of you, but the taste of her skin would have to be enough. And if Elena's moans and her nails scraping at your back were any indication, working her neck as best you could was more than enough for her.

Several thrusts later, all of her muscles, inside and out, tensed and a keening wail escaped her lips as she came, hard. With two more strokes, you were right there with her, burying yourself deep, the after shocks of her orgasm prolonging your pleasure. Your arms gave out and the rest of your weight collapsed on top of her, knowing she could bear it, that she liked being covered in you. She wrapped her arms and legs around you and you nuzzled your nose behind her ear, breathing in her scent, thanking God that you could still smell that even without your vampire senses. It wasn't as strong, but it was still there, and you wanted to savor that too, hoping to take it with you into the after life.

Later, as you drank from her wrist, restoring the blood she'd taken, she said the words you'd heard a million times.

"I love you, Damon."

They'd never sounded so sweet. They'd never felt so painful.

Taking a final swallow, you wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and kissed her softly, returning the sentiment. "I love you too."

Sighing contentedly, Elena tightened her limbs around you. "Stay here, inside me," she whispered.

You nodded, words too much of a struggle at that moment. You had never denied her the request, one made with increasing frequency as of late, and on your last night with her, there was no place you would have rather been. She fell asleep, curled around your warm body in every way possible.

That was when you finally let the tears silently fall.

* * *

Turning off the faucets, you dry off your neck and slip your lapis lazuli ring back on. It no longer holds any power, but for some reason you don't feel like _you_ without it. It's as much a part of you as the last name Salvatore, this house, your brother, the incomparable woman lying in your bed, your wedding band on the finger next to it.

Walking through the bedroom, you grab a pair of jeans and a black, long-sleeved sweater out of the closet, dressing quietly as Elena continues to snore lightly. With all of the food, booze, blood and sex last night, she'll be out for a little while longer. Hopefully long enough to give you a head start on what has to be done.

Clothes and shoes on, leather jacket in hand, you move to the side of the bed, admiring how her olive skin and chestnut hair contrast with the ivory sheets. It has always been one of your favorite sights. Reaching out a hand, you tuck a stray strand of hair that has fallen across her face back behind her ear, your fingers trailing across her cheek, as you look one last time upon the love of your life.

"Thank you," you quietly whisper, before bending over and lightly brushing your lips over hers.

You leave her sleeping peacefully in the morning sun, saying a silent prayer that she will someday forgive you for what you are about to do.

* * *

"No way in hell, Damon."

Stefan is pacing back and forth in front of your family's crypt, hands clenched in his overly gelled hair.

"Come on, baby bro," you smile wryly, stretching your arms out wide. "I'm giving you the chance to do what you've always wanted. A free pass to kill me, once and for all. Hell, I'm even asking you to do it."

"I haven't wanted to kill you for a very long time, Damon. I don't know if I ever really did," he says, shaking his head and continuing his circuit around the clearing.

You ignore his monumental admission and press on. Now is not the time for cathartic confessions and brotherly bonding. Your time and patience are running thin. By now your ghost buddy Ric has surely ratted you out to Jeremy, and odds are, Elena is on her way here.

"I'm dead by this time next year, Stefan. I'm only going to get sicker, weaker. I'm a liability you can't afford."

"Get a second opinion."

"I have!" you shout, getting in his face and putting a halt to his pacing. "A second, a third, a fourth. They all say the same. I'm a dead man."

"We'll give you regular transfusions of our blood," Stefan offers, holding out his arm. "Keep you alive that way."

"You don't think we've tried that already?! It was the first thing Doctor-Sticks-A-Lot did. No affect whatsoever. Fuck, I can't even kill myself."

"You've tried?" he gasps, horror painting his face several shades paler than usual.

"Hell yes, I've tried. Meredith too. Apparently, if nature doesn't claim me, it has to be a vampire. Witches love their irony."

"Damon, I can't," Stefan says, hanging his head and letting his arms drop feebly to his side.

"You have to!" you roar, giving him a two-handed shove to the chest that doesn't budge him an inch. "I don't trust anyone else to do it."

"It's not my decision to make," he replies quietly, looking up at you with watery eyes.

The damn sentimental bastard.

That's when you hear it. The crack of a branch under foot.

"He's right," Elena's angry, determined voice echoes loudly in the otherwise deserted clearing. "If it's anyone's decision, it's mine."

"Shit," you curse under your breath, running a hand over your face, pinching the bridge of your nose in frustration at the scene you were hoping like hell to avoid.

"Elena, go home," you order, still facing your brother. "This doesn't concern you."

Her nails dig into your bicep, spinning you around. "The hell it doesn't!" she barks, painfully jabbing an accusatory finger in your chest. "My husband is dying – is standing here asking his brother to kill him on Christmas Day – and that doesn't concern me? Have you lost your fucking mind?!"

"I'm sick, Elena," you snarl, slapping her hand away. "Not crazy."

She captures your hand in her iron grip, jerking you closer against your will. "Did you think I didn't know? That I couldn't taste it in your blood? That I didn't feel you pulling away?"

"Elena," you warn through clenched teeth, holding on to your resolve by a thread, as you see the tears well up in her eyes.

Her other hand comes to rest over your heart as she quietly asks, "Do you remember how we fell asleep last night?"

How could you forget, the warmth of her wrapped around every part of you.

"How we've fallen asleep like that more and more often the past few months. I knew, Damon." Her voice cracks on your name as a single tear streaks down her cheek. "I couldn't get close enough, knowing it was only a matter of time before I lost you."

The thread unravels, the fight bleeding out of you. You yank her into your arms, as fiercely as you still can, and bury your nose in her hair. She takes giant, gulping breaths, fighting back sobs.

"That's exactly why you can't make this decision."

"Why does it have to be done at all?" she wails, tilting her head back and looking up at you with wide, desperate eyes. "Why can't you just stay and enjoy the days you have left?"

"That's just it, Elena," you explain, pushing back her hair and framing her face with your hands, your thumbs wiping away her tears. "They won't be enjoyed. It's going to get ugly, painful, very quickly."

"We'll handle it," she cries, curling a hand around your wrist, nails digging painfully into your skin.

"I was never supposed to get sick and die, Elena. I've been there once, after Tyler bit me. And I will not die like that in your arms again. I refuse." That night still ranks as the second worst of your life, behind only the night that she died. You won't relive it. Leaning forward, you rest your forehead against hers, confessing your fears. "I can't go through that again. I can't do that to _you_ again."

She stares into your eyes for what feels like the longest minute of your life. Then, she takes a deep, shaky breath and utters the one word you never thought she'd say, "Alright."

"Alright?" you repeat, scarcely believing your human ears.

"Yes, alright," she confirms, but then delivers an ultimatum of her own – the very last thing you wanted, the thing you hoped most to avoid. "But I'll be the one to do it."

"You won't be able to," Stefan chimes in, reminding you of his presence, forgotten for a moment during your battle of wills with Elena.

"This is between your brother and me, Stefan," she snaps, pulling back slightly but keeping her gaze locked with yours, her hand on your chest fisting in your sweater. "It's always been him and me. It's how this all began and it's how it all will end."

"Elena, you can't," you choke out around the lump in your throat, one hand coming to rest atop hers, the other softly caressing her tear-stained cheek.

"It's what you want?" she asks, mirroring your movement, gliding a hand along your stubbled jaw. "To die today?"

"Yes," you breathe, letting your eyes slip shut as you nuzzle your nose against her palm.

"Then give me today," she says, the pleading tone of her voice causing you to open your eyes and meet her earnest gaze. "Give me one last day, one last Christmas, with you. And let me end this tonight on my terms, our terms. You owe me that much."

"Elena-" you start, but then she's up on her toes, her lips lightly brushing yours.

"Please, Damon," she begs before kissing you soundly.

"She's right," Stefan declares, once you break the kiss and curl Elena into your arms, meeting his eyes over her head. "You fought her, how you felt, being together, but you've always wound up right back here. Together. You'll give her this last request."

You hold his intense gaze for another couple of minutes, your blue eyes locked with his green ones, as your wife's body remains tense in your arms, her breath held, the both of them waiting for your answer.

"Alright," you finally concede, a tear falling down your cheek and into her hair. "Alright."

* * *

You return from the cemetery to the most awkward Christmas brunch in history. Jeremy scowls from his place at the head of the table, while Bonnie watches you with searching, contemplative eyes from the other end. Stefan sits blank-faced and mute across from you, as Caroline, to his right, speaks enough for the both of them, overcompensating as usual. Elena, for her part, sits by your side, hand on your knee, pretending like everything is normal. God only knows what Liz and the rest of the family gathered around the table think is going on. By the time dessert is brought out, even Elena is tired of the charade and excuses the two of you early.

You and Elena spend the rest of Christmas Day holed up in your bedroom, much like those days during that first, blissful summer together – laughing, teasing, loving. But unlike those days, each time today after you've come down from your release, she asks you to stay inside her, intimately connected. Then, she winds her limbs around you and cries. You hold on tight yet remain silent because you know any words at this point would be idle comfort.

* * *

When it's dark and a chill has stolen through the house and into your soul, you ask Elena to fulfill her promise.

She's sitting naked astride you, in your lap on the leather cushions in front of the fireplace, lifting and plunging her hips, up and down your length, in time with each pull of blood from your neck. She moves to dislodge her fangs, but your hand at the back of her head fists in her hair and holds her there.

"Keep going," you tell her, blackness creeping in around the edge of your vision.

She freezes.

"Elena, _please_," you whisper hoarsely.

You feel her breath hitch once before she moves again, slowly at first, as she begins to drain the life out of you. Your hand in her hair loosens and falls down her back, coming to rest on her hip, matching the other one, fingers digging into her skin and encouraging her movement. You will go out of this world loving your woman, in every sense of the word.

On the edge of darkness, as your world narrows to the fire at your back, her fangs in your neck and your bodies straining for release, that's when you feel her hot, wet tears dripping onto your skin. Each one pierces your heart like an arrow.

But none of them are fatal, and neither is her bite, as a split second later she has you on your back, her open wrist jammed against your mouth.

"I'm sorry, Damon. I can't do it, I can't lose you," she cries, looming over you, her tears raining down on your face. "You're my whole world. I love you, Damon. Please stay with me. _Please just drink_."

Nodding in the face of her anguish, you close your eyes and swallow back the blood she offers, melting into the cushions and your own despair.

* * *

After you promise not to do anything rash and Elena eventually drifts off to sleep, you slip out of your bed, pull on a t-shirt and jeans, and leave her snoring lightly, much the same way you began this awful day.

Stefan meets you at the bottom of the stairs with a glass of bourbon. "She couldn't do it."

"Of course she couldn't, Stefan," you reply, spitting his name, as you down the measure he's poured and stalk to the drink cart in the parlor for a refill. Double shot in hand, you collapse onto the couch, bent at the waist with your elbows resting on your knees and the glass dangling from your fingertips.

Stefan lowers himself onto the couch across from you. "I called Meredith. Had her email me your medical records."

"And?" you ask over the rim of your glass, before throwing back the drink.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he replies, and your eyes snap up. His are sad but resigned. He's earned at least one medical degree by now. After reviewing those records, there's no way he couldn't comprehend the death sentence you've been handed.

"Yes," you answer without hesitation.

"Even after that up there," he says, his eyes glancing toward the ceiling, indicating that he heard at least part of what went down between you and Elena.

"If we don't end this now, there will be many more scenes like that over the next year. Each one will break her a little more, Stefan. She'll drive herself crazy trying to find a cure that doesn't exist, she'll blame herself, and in the end, her last memory of me will be of a sick, dying, shadow of the man she used to love. Please don't do that to her."

He holds your stare for a few tense moments before sinking back into the couch cushions, folding his hands on his stomach and twirling his ring. Predictably, he's decided to abide by Elena's wishes, for better or worse, so you rise up off the couch and turn toward the stairs.

"You'll be dead within the hour."

"What?" you gasp, whirling around to find him standing, stepping toward you.

"The glass of bourbon I gave you was laced with poison."

You're speechless, shocked and moved by your brother's actions, his trust in you, his devotion.

When you find words again, you have one not-so-simple request. "Make sure she doesn't do anything rash."

"You mean like we just did," he laughs bitterly, tears forming at the corners of his eyes.

You turn your head to the side, unable to face the truth of his words. "Tell her I'm sorry."

In the next instant, he's pulling you into a crushing embrace. "We'll keep her safe," he promises, his voice thick with tears. "All of them."

"Thank you, brother," you choke out, firmly slapping his back. "For everything."

He squeezes you once more, says a watery "Goodbye, Damon," and then he is gone, a cold gust of wind in his place.

You take off your lapis ring, place it on the drink cart and turn off the parlor lights, saying goodbye to your home, to a part of yourself. Slowly climbing the stairs, you stumble a little at the top as you begin to feel light-headed. Pausing outside your bedroom door, you take a deep, steadying breath and then push it open, quietly closing it behind you.

Carefully crossing the room, you stand at the side of the bed, admiring your wife in the waning light of the fire – her skin seemingly aglow, her hair spread out over the pillows, her lips parted slightly. Tugging your t-shirt off over your head and dropping your jeans, you slip beneath the covers, pulling her naked body against yours, savoring all that is Elena in these final moments.

She nuzzles into you, seeking out your warmth, as her eyes open part way, giving you a final glimpse at that special shade of brown that is your favorite color. "Love you, Damon," she mumbles, smiling softly and leaning forward to kiss you, before her head falls back down on the pillow beside you, eyes slipping shut.

"Love you too, Elena."

Her face is the last thing you see as your world fades to black.

**THE END**

* * *

_* Runs and hides * _… But seriously, I promise to take a break from killing Damon for now and get back to writing TLC and FT. Updates are already in the works on both ;). In the meantime, reviews are much appreciated and keep the musie going!

_**EXTRA SPECIAL THANKS**_ to Sar for organizing this wonderful event. I wasn't sure I was going to continue to write DE, even in an AU/H context, but these #DEHX3 stories were magic for the muse. Can't thank you enough, Sar!


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